


Fire Away

by NowWeOwnTheNight



Series: Haikyuu!! AUs [8]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, BTS FIRE IN THE DISTANCE, It's Lit™, M/M, MATSUKAWA -WHAT THE HAP IS FUCKENING -ISSEI, THIS IS PART OF A BIGGER SERIES IF U WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ANYONE ELSE CHECK OUT THE FIRST ONE, and death, and his hair is hella long he has to put it up in a bun, death and memes, everythings lit, fiyyaaaaahhhh ohhooohh, hanamaki -evry1 we love is ded but i will continu to feed issei lies so he doesnt go nuts- takahiro, kindaichi in pastel sweaters on a truck roof as the sun rises, kindaichi is a son, lit on fIRE AHAHA, little onion, many memes, much swearing, not really tho, this is my aesthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NowWeOwnTheNight/pseuds/NowWeOwnTheNight
Summary: “… Wanna draw on my husband’s face while he sleeps?”“Hell yeah.”Kindaichi barely has the tip of the pen touched to Matsukawa’s nose but it’s enough for him to wake up, shoving Kindaichi down in the haze of overtiredness. The laughter underneath him is familiar, and it registers just as he’s feeling for where to put his knife, drawing Matsukawa back to reality. He collapses on top of Kindaichi, ignoring the now babbling boy and falling back into a deep sleep. His hair is nearly as long as Kindaichi’s when they first met- Kindaichi has to spit it out of his mouth as he tries to breath. And Hanamaki, sitting a safe distance away with the excuse of finding the nonexistent second marker in his bag, laughs until he cries.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for the sake of good bants i originally had kindaichi interacting with the meme kings as if they’d been on the team together [ok ok i forgot when this was set]  
> so oops if this is a bit more patchy than usual  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/8243671 < LINK TO THE ORIGINAL ay it follows asanoya and just builds in to a shit fight  
> enjoy <3 \o/

-˙˙˙-

 

“Oikawa- _where did he go-_ oh shit- oh _shit_ , _shit, shit, shit-_ ”

“Makki!”

“Fuck Issei- there you are-”

“Where’s-”

“ _I dunno_! They were here one second- and the next-”

“Don’t tell me those fuckers ditched us!!”

“Shit! _Shit_ we’re dead, we’re so-”

“Iwaizumi took my _fucking_ javelin!”

“That bastard took my dad’s _gun_ , dickhead- do you even know how to throw a - _ah_!” Diving over the girl that trips out of class 3-1, Hanamaki takes Matsukawa’s hand and lets himself be dragged up, ignoring the screams as the girl is pounced on by a pair of infected and dragged back into the classroom. Bolting to escape the school’s halls like it’s any other lunchtime, the two of them dodge and weave between rabid students and zombies alike. With Matsukawa leading the way and barging through uninfected, Hanamaki yells which turns to take from behind and keeps an eye on the windows, trying to gauge which door they should use. His sports bag is stuffed full of gym equipment, Matsukawa’s with supplies from the arts department and food from a toppled vending machine.

“I’m- I was-” Matsukawa pants, fighting to keep pace with Hanamaki as they race out the doors and head for the school gates- “I was just- gonna stab- them with it-”

“That _defeats the purpose of having a javelin, Issei_!!” Reaching the bike rails, Hanamaki reaches for the first one and whirls it around over his head by the front wheel, building up speed and slamming it into the skull of a zombie shambling up the drive towards the school. Its skull cracks and when it hits the ground with a loud thud, blood and black ooze spills over the concrete, splatters on the Aoba Johsai school sign. “Grab one, quick!”

“Maybe if- I had it- I could’ve tied it to- to the handlebars, I-”

“Forget the javelin and get on a fucking bike, Issei, damnit!” The hoard of teenage infected pours out of the building, swarming the quad, few bypassing the easy meals and heading for him and Matsukawa.

They pedal away from Aoba Johsai, unsure of where to go other than _away from populated areas_ , as Hanamaki remembers his father saying over the phone. That was moments before his little brother’s screams crackled through the receiver and the call cut off on his dad yelling, repeating over and over ordering him to not come back to the house.

 

“Where are we gonna go?” He frets, later on in a campsite atop a hill north of their town; he only knows this because he’d grabbed a compass from the orienteering club’s box in the gym storage room. Matsukawa had to read it because Hanamaki still doesn’t get how they work, but at least they know roughly where they are. “What are we going to _do_? How are we gonna find Oikawa?! Who can we trust- what’s gonna happen, oh, _fuck_ it’s the end of the world, we’re gonna _die,_ Issei, we’re. Going. To. _Die_.”

“Shut up, stop shitting your pants, and help me put more nails in this.” Matsukawa grumbles, holding a hammer out for his friend, a baseball bat held between his knees, its head lying off the edge of a tree stump. “There’s a couple of large paring blades in the bag, and one of those grass-cutter things-”

“I’ll get them.”

“Thanks, man.”

Fetching the whipper-snipper and an array or carving tools, Hanamaki sits across the stump from Matsukawa and takes the hammer, making a start on the underside of the wood. The sun starts to set, Hanamaki notices, but the heat doesn't seem to be able to reach the cold he feels.

“So, what. We make weapons, and _then_?”

“So we can defend ourselves- let’s not go out looking for trouble.”

“Good plan. And then?”

“We try to find our friends.”

“Okay…” Hanamaki draws out, slowly hitting a nail into the bat and staring across at Matsukawa, “You’re weirdly calm?”

“We almost died, dude.” Matsukawa huffs, focusing on building his mace for a while. Hanamaki is happy to shrug and continue making the baseball bat a bit more lethal- once they finish it, he rolls it off the stump and heaves the whipper-snipper onto it, tossing one of the blades to Matsukawa, who catches it handle first. After a second, he spins it a few times, changing the grip rapidly and slicing it through the air. It’s intimidating, even though his movements are amateurish and he fumbles a lot. Hanamaki leans away, dazed. “ _That’s_ gonna be our life, now. Should probably get used to it.”

Matsukawa’s never been big on words- this is no new thing to Hanamaki.

But somehow, for all his lacking, Matsukawa often knows exactly what to say.

“Yeah, man. I guess so.”

 

-˙˙˙-

 

 _“Have you heard…”_ The whisper spreads across the mainland, reaching every corner of Japan- a secret, like a terrible truth everyone knows but no one tells out of fear of bringing the terribleness upon themselves.

_“Two men. One wears a bandana, another wears sunglasses that never dirty. A fearsome duo, with no name, for their stories always change- their methods always change. Sometimes, they are silent and ruthless. Sometimes, they sing. Sometimes they torture, sometimes they are merciful.”_

_“But always, always: they never leave survivors.”_

 

-˙˙˙-

 

“Shit!” Matsukawa flips his sunglasses up, aiming a deadly swing at an already-dead zombie’s throat. Typically, he’d make some crack about it being ‘double-dead’, but now is not the time for their routine puns and jokes. “It’s fine- _everything_ is _fine_!”

Everything is _not fine_.

Some poor, equipment-heavy soul has fallen into a pool inside the mansion they’d been checking out, and instead of continently- quietly -dying, they had attracted what appear to be the infected guests of a masquerade ball. Matsukawa, having been cornered in the DJ booth, is alternating between swinging the baseball bat and wielding his modified whipper-snipper when he has the room. But the mess of zombies grows into a mob, it’s getting too hard for one person to hold them back, let alone one person barred from the ability to run and spread the group out.

“I said _hey-yeah-yeah yeah!!!”_  Like an angel, Hanamaki jumps from the balcony, grabbing the chandelier and swinging to the other side, letting it fly back and aiming a shot at the cord suspending it. He sings all the while; an impressive multitasking ability he’s gained over the four months or so since outbreak. The crystals shatter all over the room, the cast-iron frame crushing the infected that had been following them. He fires shot after shot down into the indoor pool, picking them off one by one. Watching him in awe, Matsukawa raises his bat and holds off a snarling zombie, happy to let it foam at the mouth and lurch at him as he admires his friend.

There’s a short knife taped under Matsukawa's forearm, kept just out of the way if he needs to grab something or scale a wall, and the fighting gloves they’d taken from a sports store has deadly metal cleats attached to the knuckles. The growing-out hair is held out of his eyes by a strip of cloth he’d torn from a shirt a month or so ago, neon yellow- the only eye-catching thing of his apparel. Black grease is smudged under his eyes and on his hands and neck, he’s _covered_ in blood- both of them are, it isn’t often that they’re _not_ covered in blood –and he has, evidently, no regard for the _No Memes in Sticky Situations_ rule they’d made after a recent Incident.

_“Hey-yeah yeah-”_

“Hiro?!” Matsukawa shouts, begging for help but receiving no attention from his friend. The zombies are drawn away when Hanamaki leaps for a banner and swings himself down to the ground floor, giving Matsukawa the opportunity to finally thin them out.

 _“I said hey_ ,” He dances over to the pool, “ _What’s going on…_ ” Hanamaki finishes with a flourish, decapitating the last zombie and holding a hand down into the pool for the person to take, “ _Oh_? Do my eyes deceive me?” A familiar face, even under the bloodied facemask; no, Hanamaki isn’t imagining things. It’s the boy from the junior high volleyball tournament, the one on Oikawa’s old team with the crazy hair. Oikawa had introduced them to this kid in particular before the game, as well as his odd blue-eyed friend who reminded Hanamaki of a sloth.

This kid’s hair is flat, now, and flowing out to his shoulders, held out of his face by the straps of the mask. Tufts of black hair have escaped in his scuffle with the infected and fallen over his face and eyes. “Turnip! Good to see ya, little dude! Is, uh- is Kunimi with you-”

“ _Dead_ ,” Kindaichi grits out, and it takes Hanamaki a second too long to recognize the wild snarl on Oikawa’s former-underclassmen’s face.

His back hits the pool floor, winding him. The pain blooming in his stomach from where Kindaichi’s elbows jabbed, and sears where his backside gets grated from sliding down the pool's sloped edges. Together the sensations are enough to make him retch, soft-limbed, stunned at the bottom of the pool.

Matsukawa’s weapons are brushed aside with two hard yanks from Kindaichi, “Kunimi is _dead_ , as you’re gonna be-”

“Woah, shit- Kindaichi, Kindaichi! _Chill_ ,” He narrowly darts out of the way of the dagger Kindaichi cuts at his neck, the whistle of the slim knife-edge passing again, and again, and again as Kindaichi wields it expertly. Matsukawa would praise him if his life didn’t depend on avoiding those chillingly accurate, calculated slashes, “That's your name, right?! It’s _me_ , it’s _Mattsun_ , f-from-”

“I know who you are!!” Kindaichi steps forward twice, overtaking Matsukawa’s backtracking, landing a shallow cut through the thin skin between his chin and his throat; Matsukawa lurches back, making no move to cover the injury as he tries to dodge to a side. Cornered in the direction Kindaichi wants and steadily back into a wall, stripped of his weapons, Matsukawa begins to panic. “And I’m going to stop you two, I’m going to get my _reward_ , I-”

He doesn’t get a chance to go on- Hanamaki has him pinned face-down, yanking his shoulder around until the joint creaks and Kindaichi gasps, hand flexing and releasing the dagger. He goes limp, allowing the stronger boy to overpower him.

“Shit, the shallot baby has turned into a rancid little onion.” Hanamaki chuckles, bringing his own blade to Kindaichi’s throat. Written in permanent marker on its handle is _‘Property of Aoba Johsai School Arts- Do Not Remove’_. He snorts. “Now tell me- are you gonna kill us, or are you gonna let us kill you?”

“Is that what you say to all your victims?” Kindaichi wheezes, huffing for air under Hanamaki’s weight, wincing when the knife wedges its way through his flesh.

“Oh, our rep is better than we thought, Mattsun! We have _victims_ , now. Now all those _Wanted_  signs make sense…”

“We’re all victims,” Matsukawa drawls, his sudden nonchalance betrayed only by his eyes: never leaving Kindaichi’s twitching hand. Picking his teeth with the tip of his knife, moving it away briefly to point a sick smile down at Kindaichi, he growls, “What’s a little harm in _sport_?”

The blade digs in further, causing Kindaichi to flinch.

“That- that’s _disgusting_ \- you guys are fucked-”

“ _Wow_!”

Kindaichi stares in shock as the two older boys burst into laughter, as if they’d just cracked one of their weird internet jokes in the middle of an intense set break nd not almost killed him- the break he remembers was right after Kageyama had been sent to sit on the bench, he remembers hearing it clearly in the stunned silence of the gymnasium.

Matsukawa drops his knife with a clatter and Hanamaki staggers off of him, snatching the weapons out of his reach.

“You really sounded _bad_ , dude! _We’re all victims_ , grrr!” Hanamaki imitates Matsukawa, slapping him on the back. “Nice going!”

“What the _fuck_ is wrong with you two?!”

“Don’t believe everything you hear, darling shallot, have you learnt nothing of life?” Matsukawa coos, crouches in front of him, carefully raising the mask off of his face and tossing it away. The grin is less predatory and more like he’d remembered it. Lazy, little in comparison to Oikawa’s, slightly slick despite his good-natured heart. One of his hands rests on Kindaichi's shoulder, a light pressure that keeps him restrained. On the edge of his vision, he keeps an eye on Hanamaki circling behind him.

“Life hasn’t exactly been _nurturing_ , lately-”

“Ohohoh, he’s learning how to bite back!”

“Kindaichi, my guy, my pal. We’ve done _nothing_ wrong,” Hanamaki pats him down with the excuse of cleaning the dust of the crumbling mansion off of his clothes. Kindaichi jumps when the searching hands press against the gun taped to his inner left calf and shove the fabric of his pants up to get it, “We’re just excessively loud, and we look fucking badass.”

“It’s a winning combination, really.”

“And media or not, people lap it up. It’s incredible.”

“We’re, like. Apocalypse famous, or something.”

“Funny, how people still use stories and fear, in times like these.” Turning the gun in his hands, Hanamaki strolls back into sight, stopping behind Matsukawa. “It’s been, what, three years? Almost?”

“Almost five months.” Matsukawa mutters as Hanamaki examines the weapon.

“Almost five months, huh? Close enough, man, but- who needs dates, y’know? Time doesn’t exist and our earth is a mere molecule on another universe’s lampshade and the concept of genders is fake and this whole zombie-thing is the government trying to cull the population-”

Snapping the cartridge open, Hanamaki frowns. At the gun, at Kindaichi. Back at the gun. Up again. 

“ _What_.” Kindaichi grumbles at him. “I _needed_ an out, just in case-”

Hanamaki bangs the round back in and fires the gun into the air, hurling it over his shoulder, eyes never leaving Kindaichi’s as it clatters into the pool. The sound reverberates through the huge, empty home. Cringing, the echo rings out, Kindaichi ducks his head. Matsukawa urges him to sit up, and Kindaichi always guessed they had some sort of psychic connection, for how fast they could coordinate their jokes, but this is ridiculous.

“The fuck have you done that for, Hiro? We could use the extra- oh, just one bullet... Damnit, Kindaichi, that’s not gonna do much against them zombies, huh?” Matsukawa teases him, a touch warily, lightly shaking the younger boy.

Kindaichi laughs into his knees, now curled up to his chest. When he looks up, the dirt on his cheeks are streaked with tears.

“And h-here I was, worrying ab-about Iwa-”

“Ah, _dude_ …” Hanamaki kneels next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “You’re okay, small shallot, we have no idea what the fuck we’re doing, too. Nothing different to real life, really. Now, where is the asshat?”

“Hu-huh?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Oikawa is too, little onion?” Matsukawa asks him, and Kindaichi freezes, his smile drawing out into a thin line.

“N-no, I… I assumed he was with… You- you guys aren’t with him and Iwaizumi?”

“Nah, they took off right away, left us in school. Hell scary. We haven’t been able to find them, been searching ever since…”

Kindaichi glowers at the floor, angrily wiping the tears off of his cheeks and smudging away the grime.

“Sucks…”

“Yeah, buddy. Tell me about it…”

“… Can- can I help you? Find them?”

“It’s not like we’re gonna say no, dude.” Matsukawa holds his hands out for Kindaichi to take. He uses Kindaichi to help him stand up, gently tugging the younger boy to his feet. “Fuck knows I’m sick of _this_ guy’s ugly mug.”

“ _Hey_!” Hanamaki crows from the floor, pegging the used bullet shell up at Matsukawa’s face. “ _Rude_!”

 

-˙˙˙-

 

Hanamaki keeps watch on Kindaichi, letting Matsukawa sleep first.

It’s been a week, but he’s paranoid- the kid almost sliced his best friend’s throat, for goodness sake

“Ta… Takahiro? Isn’t it my turn to watch?” Matsukawa slurs, shifting in their blanket. Hanamaki tries to shush him but his eyelids betray him, fluttering at the thought of rest. His back muscles give out, flopping with a huff- at the same time, Matsukawa rubs his eyes, wriggling to sit up, sluggish and making it out to be way more of an effort than sitting up should be.

“Ah… My body is weak… I cannot go on… Tell my husband I love him…”

“It’s okay, shh, you sleep. I’ll watch him next-” He’s choked as Hanamaki slides an arm around his throat, pulling him down to lie beside him.

“Do I have to do everything in this family?”

“Hiro-”

“I love my husband…” Hanamaki mumbles, itching at Matsukawa’s scalp, smiling when he groans and leans in to the scratching nails.

“But Kindaichi-”

“He’s healing, let him live.” Hanamaki whispers, not trusting his words but hoping saying it to Matsukawa will give them strength. “We’ll be fine. If he goes nuts and kills us, it’s _my_ mistake.”

“… Healing, huh?” Matsukawa laughs, dark and quiet so as not to disturb Kindaichi. He flicks the blanket back, revealing Hanamaki's hand- frozen in place, the same place it’s been whenever they’re in combat or otherwise engaged.

“That’s a safety precaution and you know it-” Reaching to move Matsukawa’s hand, Hanamaki is cut off gasping, a hard slap landing on the back of his wrist.

He checks over his shoulder: Kindaichi is snoring soundly.

“Dude, come on-”

“No- Hiro, _fear_. That’s what this shit is.” Gesturing to the knife on his hip, the hand curled around the handle. “I’m… So fucking scared, I have no _idea_ how you can think that that boy is _healing_. That _any_ of us could possibly rebuild. This is the _end of the world_ , Takahiro. We’re… We are going to die, either way.”

“May as well go down fighting,” Hanamaki imitates Matsukawa’s flat grumble, backing down from the challenge of moving his friend’s hand away from his blade and instead curling it back through dark hair, “That’s what _you_ think, Issei… It’s dumb, mind you. There’ll be a time where we won’t have to fight anymore. When we can hold each other and start feeling better, instead of just bracing ourselves for the next day, trying to forget the last one.”

“That’s fucking hopeful, Hiro.”

“What can I say,” He grunts, plucking a few hairs out of Matsukawa’s head and chuckling when he doesn’t even flinch, “I’m a cheery guy.”

“But will that really stop people, after being conditioned to resort to violence for so long?” Matsukawa argues back, a pointed shift of his head in the direction of Kindaichi’s sleeping form.

“I believe so- for the ones who can hold on to their humanity, at least. He’s been smiling more, haven’t you noticed? He… Issei, he lost his friend. He’s been fighting alone for fuck knows how long, and look at him. Well- maybe stop looking at him, you gotta sleep, but. He’s resting, knowing we’re close. He trusts us… He’s not lost yet. He can still mend, he has time, not- not… Not like the infected.”

Matsukawa winds his arm tighter around Hanamaki, hiding his face in the light brown scruff. It’s a silent _I’m glad you’re still here_ , one they’ve become familiar with since the beginning of the end of humankind.

“… Yeah, I guess you’re right, Hiro.”

Hanamaki is silent for a minute where Matsukawa fully expects another smugly confident comment, an _‘I’m always right, idiot’_. Just as he’s starting to worry, Hanamaki sighs.

“I… No one’s all the way gone until they’re shot in the head or infected. I believe that.”

“… You always did see too much good in the world, even under that cover of memes and cynicism.”

“Go to sleep, Issei.”

“Idiot.”

“Bigger idiot.”

 

Screams wake them up hours later, the sun still far from shining. Scrambling for his knife, comforted by the sight of Matsukawa crouching with his own already drawn and ready, Hanamaki hears Kindaichi whimper:

“It was just car tyres-”

“ _Just_ car tyres?!” Matsukawa shouts, scaring Kindaichi further.

“Headlights!” Hanamaki calls out, snagging his backpack and sprinting for cover in the trees around the rest-stop clearing. The other two follow him, diving out of sight- the lights round corner and cast bar-like shadows through the woods. An old family-mover blaring pop music. On the driver's side, the window starts to roll down. Kindaichi huddles closer to Hanamaki, who wraps an arm around the boy thoughtlessly.

“ _Turn that shit off, Hinata_!”

“ _If infected heard the music, they’d have heard the engine long before- ah- moron, don’t- stop pulling my hair- no-_ ”

The music stops abruptly and a disc is frisbeed from the open window, the van passing by.

_“Idiot!”_

_“Dumbass!”_

_“Idiot!!”_

_“Dumb-”_

_“Can you two stop!? I’m trying to drive, here!!”_

_“Noya, calm down. You two, please go back to your…”_

Winding away along the road, red taillights flickering between the tree trunks. The van eventually drives out of their hearing range. Kindaichi sobs in relief.

Matsukawa collapses to the forest floor, wrapping himself up in the blanket, pleading: “A few more hours, or so help me God…”

“Come on, little onion.” Hanamaki lies down, shuffling under a free corner of the coverlet, pulling Kindaichi near when the boy finally unstiffens and kneels down to drop his pack. “Back to sleep, okay?”

“Uh- o-okay…” Kindaichi breathes, legs kicking awkwardly at Hanamaki’s before he finds a comfortable spot. It's his own fault for facing Hanamaki instead of rolling over.

If Matsukawa knees him in the back one too many times to wake him up, then that’s his own fault, too.

 

-˙˙˙-

 

_“Fighting my way downtown!”_

_“Running fast!”_

_“Zombies pass!”_

Can I go now!?” Kindaichi yelps, too exasperated by the older two- their constant need to sing whenever infected detect them -to realise that he’d completed their tune. “I am _sick_ of your-”

Hanamaki cheers out the piano riff of the song and Matsukawa carves through the stomach of an elderly zombie, their high-five slapping wetly with the blood. The moonlight highlights it in the dark, glittering black and silver on this old road run through with cracks and grass. Weeds and small shrubs and flowers closed for the night are springing up in every space possible, overgrowing parking meters and sewer drains.

“That’s how it’s done!”

The trail of gore and dead bodies left in the trio’s wake clutters the street, flies already flocking to the corpses of infected. Wandering off, Matsukawa hums more of the song to himself, leaving Hanamaki to deal with a panting, anger-boiled, blood-drenched Kindaichi.

“Guys, _really-_ ”

“Cool it, Kindaichi, that was the last one. We’re safe.”

“Phew-”

“Now get a move on, look around for food, the usual. On with it. Clap-clap.”

“Ugh.”

“Don’t give me that face, little onion, or you’ll go in time-out.” Hanamaki taunts, ominously reloading his gun and wheeling it around his finger before holstering it in his belt. Regardless of how far they’ve come, Kindaichi shudders and scampers off to the nearest supermarket.

Spreading out, the three pick through shops and cars, finding all sorts of long-lives and weapons and items they can easily fashion in to weapons on the run.

They’ve been heading southward for while. It took a few weeks to pick up a functioning bike for Kindaichi, a few days on top of that to avoid a huge encampment of humans. They figured it was a fearsome gang although none of them knew the name of it, having been holed up in their own troubles- either too quick to kill and ask questions later, or too underpowered to risk conflict with sentient beings.

Matsukawa stops to kick at a pile of bones and half-rotten limbs, boots a picked-clean skull through a window on the second story of buildings lining the main road of the town. To entertain himself while Hanamaki and Kindaichi sweep the last few shops, he counts the parts he can make out of the sun-bleached white, planning to rebuild the skeletons and make them spell out something stupid. Kneecaps are easier to spot for their distinct shape, as are spinal cords and, obviously, pelvises. So far he’s estimated four, and all sorts of ridiculous ideas are swamping his focus.

“One, two… Four- seven, _nine_ kneecaps, and only four hip bones? That’s some fucked up anatomy shit right here…” He squats down, sweeping his hands through the bones, tossing irrelevant pieces behind him and making piles of the telltale parts of this puzzle, “Did I really count that right-”

“Woah, wonder what stripped those down… It’s been, what, half a year, now? That’s creepy, if you ask me!” Hanamaki calls, boosting himself up onto the roof of a car. “Piranhas? Land piranhas?”

“Dogs, probably.”

“Leave it to the _dogs_ , ay.”

“Hey, _hey_ Kindaichi!” Kindaichi jogs over to Matsukawa, arms full of tinned meat. The younger boy nudges his toe at the pile of tailbones Matsukawa’s got going on, intrigued, “Know how you wanted something to put in your hair?”

“I was just gonna…” He sets the cans down at his feet and points to a restaurant- the only one with a front window intact in the whole street.

“He just wants to smash out his teenage angst, Issei, let him.” Hanamaki clucks like a delighted mother, staring off down the road where the town vanishes and the moon’s reflection off the powerless streetlamps become distant pinpoints of light into the void of nighttime.

“Chopsticks are _lame_ \- no, no, _here_.” Matsukawa picks out two of the smallest, longest bones he sees and hands them to Kindaichi. “Put bones in it, it’s so much more badass!”

Going back to the task occupying his attention, Matsukawa sifts through for the ninth kneecap he thought he saw, somewhere under a- “Aha!”

“You are one fucked up guy, Mattsun.”

“Fuck you, onion-head.”

Grabbing the flat plate of bone with a victory cry, he upsets a stack of ribs and tiny hand bones. Among the bits that scatter around, an oddly shaped one rolls into the tailbone stack, catching his attention. It’s too thick to be a finger bone yet too squat to be something from an ankle or elbow. The appearance is that of a joint end, but the remainder of what could only be a femur or a tibia has been hacked off, split unevenly with chips and cracks. Grabbing it, he stuffs the piece into the drink-bottle slot on the side of his bag, zipping it up.

Hanamaki sets him with a concerned look.

“… It’s for luck.”

“Little onion is right, dude, that’s messed.”

“These better not be human bones…” Mutters Kindaichi. He sniffs one curiously, eyeing the pelvises and random leftovers of skeletons as he reaches back to poke it through his bun.

“Nah, they’re dog bones.” Hanamaki’s dead-serious face splits and he laughs when Kindaichi chokes, ready to throw the bones away. “ _Joking_! Only joking, I think they actually are human ones.”

Glancing from the ones in his hand to the ones on the ground behind him, a number of extremely humanoid skull mixed amongst the litter of bones, Kindaichi shrugs and goes back to fixing them into his hair.

“… Oh, well, that’s better than dog bones, I guess.”

To Kindaichi’s grief, Matsukawa makes them wait until he’s spelt out _DICK!_ with the bones and rotting body parts, using the ninth shin bone and foot bones for an exclamation point.

“Ah, I wish I had a camera.” He moans, looking forlornly over his shoulder. “That is art.”

“You’re fucked up, Mattsun.” Kindaichi mutters at the same time as Hanamaki’s: “Bro, imagine tumblr in the zombie apocalypse.”

Matsukawa takes his sweet time to answer both remarks, chatting loud and happy long into a night spent pedal down the deserted highway.

 

-˙˙˙-

 

Kindaichi burps loudly, snickering when it ricochets on and on in the desolate night.

“Haha, I was about to say ‘everything’s fine’, again, but now I can’t say it ironically.”

Hanamaki stretches out by the fireside, murmuring a quiet ‘amen’ to Matsukawa’s claim and stealing more of the duvet they’re sharing. Kindaichi goes back to pottering about, cleaning out cans and filling them with nails, mixing in gunpowder and threading a fuse through the gaps of the taped-on tin lid. A nod at his handiwork, and he sets it down near the fire and trots away to the river to clean out more tins. Wordlessly, Matsukawa reaches for the nail bomb and lets the fire lick the fuse, chucking the live bomb in the air, making sure it goes a safe distance to Kindaichi’s left. It goes off with a bang, nails peppering the still river’s surface. There’s a pitchy shriek and a loud, Kindaichi-sized splash as he falls in.

“Ah, sweet domesticity.” Matsukawa sighs to the clear night sky, stars dangling above the trees and dancing between the wispy clouds, lying back down, ear on Hanamaki’s chest.

“When you Kindaichi come home and make h-teh spaghetti.” Hanamaki hums back.

“What the _fuck_ , you two!” The river screeches.

“Oh!” Hanamaki gasps, eliciting a groan from Matsukawa when the chest pillowing his head rises and disturbs his relaxation. “His first swear word!”

“I hate you both!”

“Watch your tone, mister!” Matsukawa takes his turn, scolding Kindaichi in the most demanding voice he can muster.

“Fuck you!”

“That’s it, _go to your room_!!” They yell at the same time, smiling into the silence in eager anticipation for Kindaichi’s response.

“You’re not my real parents!” The sulking- if a bit too giggly -reply is yelled over the bank. “You can’t make me do _anything_!!”

Moments pass- a shooting star whizzes through the sky. They both gasp.

“Awh,” Matsukawa croons, “Make a wish, Hiro- _agh!!_ ” The noise-bomb goes off right above the campfire, scaring Matsukawa under the blanket. “ _Ah shit_!!”

“That’s it, you are in _time-out_ , you’ve been a _very_ bad boy!” Hanamaki recovers faster, glaring at their attacker who’s jogging back from the river, soaking wet and cackling into his hands.

“Such bang. Much scare.” Kindaichi scoffs, the tins rattling and clanging in an oddly calming way. He piles them beside their backpacks. “Calm down, it was only powder. I wasn’t trying to kill you. _Yet_.”

“How did you even _light_ it? A lighter?”

“I don’t know, dad- 's gotta be aliens.” He tugs his shirt off, rifling through the top-layer of his bag for a clean pair of pants, changing in to them hastily.

“What have we _done_ , Hiro?!” Matsukawa whines, edging the blanket down so his hair and eyes poke out the top. “What have we done! He’s defecting to Oikawa-brand memes, this is _not_ how we raised him!”

“Dicks out for nail bombs-”

“That’s better, mu child- put some _pants on for fuck’s sake-_ ”

“Make room for Jesus!” Kindaichi cries, flopping down between them, skin wet from the river and belly aching from laughter at the older boys’ distressed exclamations.

“You’re so fucking cold!” Hanamaki sobs. “One does not simply _fall into my bed without paying the price-_ ”

“What’s the price!?” Kindaichi screams back at Hanamaki, snorting when Matsukawa shrieks “The price is _wrong_ , bitch!” and muffles Kindaichi between himself and Hanamaki.

-˙˙˙-

 

“Hanamaki?”

“Hm?”

“Do… Do you really think we’ll find Iwaizumi?”

“… That crush really does hang on, huh?”

“Wh-what, no- no, huh- I- what-”

“Please, little onion. It was obvious, even at the competition.”

“I’m- I-”

“Don’t look so mortified. Everyone has the hots for Iwaizumi in one way or another. It’s a normal part of human life. Just don’t get your hopes up, okay? Pine from a distance like the rest of us and find yourself a shitty lookalike…” Hanamaki points over his shoulder at Matsukawa, sleeping quietly in the shade of a rusted out car, hiding his face in the shadows as the sun comes up. “For that boy is well and truly _taken._ ”

“… Oikawa… Right?”

“Don’t sound so sad, dude. Oikawa is a cool guy, once you get past the bitchy and pompous surface. He really is a nice person, if kinda scary with his passions and his self-doubt.”

“Self-doubt? _Oikawa_?”

“Mhm, usually the ones you see it on the least.”

“He always did piss me off,” Kindaichi smiles as he speaks, his sharp, thinned face softened by the sunlight. Hanamaki bumps their shoulders together, his weight shift causing the roof of the truck cab they’re sitting on to groan and dent inwards. “When we were in school together…”

“You and me both, kiddo.”

“… What do you think he’s like now…”

“Eh, probably a badass at good ol’ Hajime’s side, keeping them both afloat as always. He’d be running circles around them zombies, the bastard- oh, reminds me. I didn’t tell Mattsun this, but I saw these note-things back in that down, you know, the ones with the bones near that huge camp?”

“Yeah,” Kindaichi chuckles, touching the bones still holding their place in his hair bun, “I know the one-”

“That was Oikawa’s group.”

“… Huh?”

“Like- the… Snakes? That was their group name, apparently. Serpents or Snakes or? Something like that. It was in an apartment lobby, looked like some abandoned fort-ish thing, so I checked it out. There were knife traps and shit, and they weren’t easy to get past. Still active, and… It had all these order sheets, like daily trap checks and patrols and stuff. They all had his name on it. Oikawa Tooru… Not many of those around, I think- and, like, I know his writing. It was _definitely him_.”

“Oh my God-”

“And… Hold up…” Hanamaki reaches for his pack, rifling right to the bottom and pulling out a white piece of stretchy fabric. Parts are crusted maroon and black with blood.

“That’s-”

“His knee brace, yeah.”

“… Why… Why didn’t you tell Matsukawa-”

“He would’ve flipped out and ran through those traps looking for more clues, whether I told him about the notes or not.”

“Notes?”

“To let the group know they were moving because of all the infected in the area- like, log sort of things. Daily logs, remember, I told you about-”

“Yeah, yeah, but where did they say-”

“The group moved to that other town. But it was… The way it was written, it was hurried. Like they were-”

“Being attacked.”

“Yeah… And then, the bones, in the street, and… I thought he’d jump to conclusions and, you know. Get depressed or go on a rage or something.”

Kindaichi sways his legs through the truck's shattered front window, the shards of glass clinging to the top cutting in to the skin under his knees. It keeps his face impassive when he says:

“They’re probably dead, huh.”

“I know.”

“… But why did you keep it to yourself?”

“Because I’ve been thinking that… Everyone’s dead, by now. All our friends, coach, teachers, family… It keeps me going, somehow. The less I hope, the less it’s going to hurt when something like that happens.”

“But you keep telling Mattsun-”

“He’s different, to me. He’s not- he doesn’t do well when stuff like this…”

“But _why_ , when he’s going to find out eventually-”

When Hanamaki turns and smiles at him, glinting hard and creepy in the pastel morning lights, Kindaichi shivers, thoughts temporarily seizing up.

“It’s not like we’re going to live through this, anyways…”

“… Yes… We are.”

"Hm?”

“We are. Going to live through this. I mean it, Makki. Honestly.”

“Oh, Kindaichi. Such youthful spirit.” Hanamaki laughs at him, face relaxing into his usual smirk.

“I’m not kidding.”

“I know you’re not. That’s why it’s funny!”

“It’s not funny- I know we’re going to beat them.”

“This isn’t a video game, little onion.”

“It may as well be, with how fucked the rules are.”

“ _Rules_. Yeah. Thanks for trying to change my mind, but it’s not going to work. Not… For this, at least.”

“… Oikawa’s not dead.”

“That was uncalled for and unjustified-”

“Iwaizumi wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Yeah, and what if Iwaizumi-”

“Oikawa wouldn’t let that happen, either.”

“… You’re right, Oikawa would rather die than see Iwaizumi die-”

“Exactly-"

“Which is exactly why _both_ of them are probably dead. One goes down, both go down. Like Harry Potter- _neither can live while the other survives_ … Wait, no, _you die, I die_ , it’s like- uh, shit, what’s the movie-”

You’re actually really fucking morbid, you know?”

“It’s the end of the world, dear, I kinda have to be. Get on my level.”

“I’m happy with some sort of belief system, thank you.”

“Oi! I so have a belief system-”

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?”

“Talk shit, get hit.”

Unable to help the laughter that draws from him, Kindaichi hides his mouth in the pink sweater he’s got on, too big and forming paws over his hands.

“That…” He says after he calms down, “That sounds like something Iwaizumi would say.”

“Yeah… Yeah, it does.” He goes quiet for a while, striking Kindaichi when he notices the trails of blood dripping down the backs of his lower legs. “… And, you know… I trust you, telling you this, okay? And… And sure, yeah. Maybe my friends are still alive and kicking out there somewhere… Bickering and being cool, just like we are. Hah… Yeah, I can see that. They’d probably still fight, I don’t think that’ll change. Like me and Mattsun and memes.”

“Fuck your memes.”

“You love ‘em, little onion.”

“… I really like that nickname.”

“It’s cute.”

“Yeah… Yeah, it is.”

“… Wanna draw on my husband’s face while he sleeps?”

“Hell yeah.”

 

Kindaichi barely has the tip of the pen touched to Matsukawa’s nose but it’s enough for him to wake up, shoving Kindaichi down in a haze of overtiredness. The laughter underneath him is familiar, and it registers just as he’s feeling for where to put his knife, drawing Matsukawa back to reality. He collapses on top of Kindaichi, ignoring the now babbling boy and falling back into a deep sleep. His hair is nearly as long as Kindaichi’s when they first met- Kindaichi has to spit it out of his mouth as he tries to breath. And Hanamaki, sitting a safe distance away with the excuse of finding the nonexistent second pen in his bag, laughs until he cries.

 

-˙˙˙-

 

The puff of clouds following the rocket streaks eastwards through the south sky. Missile rumbling like a fighter jet until it wanes into a speck on the horizon, they all watch it soar together from the mouth of the cave they'd taken refuge in upon hearing its booming take-off.

“The _fuck_ was that?!” Kindaichi shout-whispers.

“Bit of the ol’ razzle dazzle.” Hanamaki winks at him. “Keep watch, buddy. They’ll be close, this hilltop seems like prime zombie territory.”

“Got it.”

“No, seriously, Hiro. What _was_ that?!” Matsukawa digs out his map and throws it on a rock, lining a string up to the direction of their compass and laying it over the position of the town they’re in. It’s a tiny town somewhere near the east coast, built mainly for holidays and tourists. They’d spent the night there, waking to a gang moving through the town and leaving blundering clods of zombies behind. “Where the hell was it from?”

“Mark it, then,” Kindaichi whispers, hovering near the cave entrance and keeping an ear out for the infected they’d had to evade, unable to creep away from in the open space skirting the town, “We’ll head that way and find out.”

While Matsukawa scrawls a shaky line along the length of a string, Hanamaki reads out the possible towns and landmarks it passes through, quietly bickering with Kindaichi about what places would have inter-continental missiles. It was definitely launched from their country- it was too low in the sky, they had seen it do a vertical ascent first.

“Why don’t we just follow the _line_ , then, little onion? It’s not like they’d put a fortress slap-bang in the middle of- _heads up-_ oh, _shit_!!” An infected lurches itself down from the cave's overhang, landing on top of Kindaichi.

Its teeth sink into his neck before any of them have time to react.

“ _Holy fuck_!” Hanamaki shrieks, reaching for Kindaichi, kicking the zombie off and putting a bullet in its skull. The bang attracts a distant mess of earsplitting squeals.

“ _Shit_!" Matsukawa curses, readying his bat, eyeing cave entrance, "So much for that plan-”

“ _Kindaichi_!! Kindaichi, oh, _fuck_ \- fuck-”

“No- _Hiro_ ,” Matsukawa's focus is shattered- he shoves the map in his hoodie pocket and grabs Hanamaki by the waist, pulling him away before he gets too close. He freezes then, arms wrapped around Hanamaki, watching Kindaichi writhe and cough blood, hands scratching at the ground, at the rocks of the cave, at the bite-mark in his neck, “Shoot it-”

“Oh, _sh-shit_!” The grip on his gun is loose- he can barely lift it level to Kindaichi’s temple, let alone aim his shaking hands straight. Kindaichi spasms once, twice, and goes still, eyes wide open and flickering every which way before rolling back into his head. A trickle of fresh blood flows from the corner of his mouth, gradually going black and putrid as the infection spreads.

“Shoot him, dude, _shoot him_ before he _turns_ -” A scream from directly above them and thundering feet shocks Matsukawa into action.

He whirls him away from Kindaichi, forcing Hanamaki to look only at him, trying to block out the mayhem about to descend on them- “We gotta _move_ \- Hiro, we’re gonna get stuck here, they’re coming!”

”I- _Kindaichi_ \- I- I c- _can’t_ -”

“Trust me- you can- _trust me_ , and run!” The first zombie drops down into the mouth of the cave, following Matsukawa’s voice. It lumbers towards them furiously. “Run, Hiro, _run_!!” Shoving Hanamaki first, they dodge around their fallen friend and the infected, having to split up to avoid the faster ones that jump into the ridge before the main hoard. “Keep running! Don’t stop for anything!!”

Through the little copse and over the drainpipe they crawled through, having no time for stealth as they weave through the patches of infected and race up the steep hill past highway signs- past their three bikes leant against a road guard. Hanamaki only makes it worse when he fires a bullet at a zombie that tumbles towards them, moving with terrifying speed for the dead. More and more piercing yells come from the trees, from the banks that drop off on either side of the highway, from the road behind them that neither dare to look back at.

They’re pushed all the way back into the tiny motel-filled town, taking what they pray will be refuge in the lobby of the tallest one.

The doors don’t hold as long as they hoped, and the building is swamped with snarling infected. Wave upon wave- their numbers are endless, climbing over one another to reach their target. Hanamaki runs out of ammunition, driving them into beating a hasty retreat up the fire stairs. Each level opens to more of the bastards, and now that the stairwell is filling up from the ground floor, there’s no other path than _up_.

“Great!! _This_   _is the end_!” Slamming out into the hazy sunlight, unhindered by mountains or trees on the high roof, Hanamaki jams every moveable object up against the door before the infected can reach it. “This is _it_ , _fuck_ , Issei-”

“Oh- fuck, Hiro-” Matsukawa had raced to the edge of the roof farthest away from the fire escape and is gawking, horrified at the sight he sees over the edge. The streets around the building are surrounded, blanketed with infected that scream and claw at each other to get inside. Hanamaki abandons the door and sprints to his side, letting out something close to a sob when he sees the mass below- “Hiro, they’re _everywhere_!”

“I- Issei, I just- I wanted to say,” Hanamaki grabs his friend’s shoulders, bringing them face to face, “Before we die- Issei- you- you are the _best_ thing that’s ever happened to me and I love you!”

“I- fuck- what- _shit_ \- _you_ -” He jumps when the door is crashed open, his chin grabbed by Hanamaki and forced to ignore the wailing hoard, raising to screams when the infected sense the pair- “You gave me something worth memeing for!”

“You- you _bememed in me when no one else did_!” Hanamaki’s choking on his laughter, eyes wide and panicked as he leads them in a deliberate step towards the edge of the roof. Matsukawa falters before following, stepping forward for every step Hanamaki takes backwards, allowing himself to be led to the drop.

“ _You’re my destiny and the memeing of my life_!”

Matsukawa guides him as he steps up onto the lip of the roof, pausing- Hanamaki stares down at him, not over his head at the shuffling feet of the zombies.

“It was a privilege to meme with you!”

“I-” Stepping up onto the thin pavers, noses brushing, Matsukawa closes his eyes and pulls Hanamaki into a tight hug- “ _I fucking love you too, man_!”

“I always- I _always_ have, I love you so much, _Issei_!!” Hanamaki digs his nails in to Matsukawa’s back, “On _three_ , okay- oh- _ah_ , what the _shit_ -”

Shoving his friend off of the roofs edge away from danger, he ignores Matsukawa’s curses, his panic at what he thinks is Hanamaki throwing him to the infected.

Hanamaki is too busy gaping at the sight.

“ _Hiro_ , what the fuck-”

“ _Uh_!?” He sweeps his arm to the scene before him. Matsukawa scrabbles to sit up and turn around, and-

“The _fuck_?!”

The once noisy, flesh-thirsty infected calling for their blood- they’re scattered, frozen where they’d stood, mid-shamble.

Heads jerk and hands twitch.

They drop, one by one, slowly then all at once with gurgles and squelches until… Nothing.

“Surprise?” Hanamaki tries, helping his friend up off the ground, dragging him by the armpits to stand on shaky legs. “They’re… All… Dead?”

“What…” Even when he kicks one it only burbles and convulses. Hanamaki grabs his hand- bleeding and scratched up from catching his fall –and leads him to the fire exit. “What in the _fuck_ …”

 

“I- ahem- I, uh,” Hanamaki stutters once they’re down on the street, picking their way through the twitching dead and leaving the little settlement in their dust, “About… What I said, on… Back there, on the roof…”

He trails off, mouth flapping without making noise, unable to force comprehensible words out of his brain.

“… Whelp,” Matsukawa says around a very fake yawn. The back of his neck is a hot red when he walks ahead down the hillside, sun setting golden through the trees, “It’s four-twenty, time to go home…”

“… Issei, _wait_ -” He hears Hanamaki call to him desperately, lets himself be turned by the hand on his shoulder.

“ _What_ -”

Dry lips press against his own, moving rough and harsh, a meaningless contact but a daring show of affections for what it would have meant months ago, before the world died. Matsukawa shoves him away- once Hanamaki leans away, not wanting to give him the wrong idea –and chuckles, entwining their fingers and dragging the boy along in the direction of the forest path.

“Haha, Takahiro, you're an _idiot_.”

“Get away from me, you meme-filled moron.” Hanamaki giggles, hip-checking Matsukawa and yanking him back when their arms straighten out between them.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He nudges against Hanamaki’s side, his free hand swinging easily, no longer hovering over his hip where his knife is sheathed.

"You're a bigger idiot, you fuck."

Even an idiot could guess: the world was saved. The infected are dead.

It’s time to start healing.

 

-˙˙˙-

 

“This is it?”

“That’s what we heard, right? Crow’s territory. This is the place.”

They’re standing on the highest point they could find at the edge of a small town, peering into the dense foliage for signs of humanity. The rain makes it harder to see, as does the lack of light from the covering of thick, grey clouds. “The question _now_ is… Which warehouse is it? I can’t see anything through all the fucking trees-”

“ _Dumbass, that’s not how you plant a seed!_ ” Screams a vaguely familiar voice from somewhere in the forest in front of them, a similarly recognizable voice shouting in response:

_“I’ll show you, idiot!! Take that!!!”_

_“Aughh!!! Gross! Get back here, stupid Hinata!”_

Matsukawa and Hanamaki turn to stare at one another, dumbfounded.

“Nah, I don’t believe it.” Hanamaki concedes, hurrying towards the direction of the yell.

“Won’t believe it ‘till I see it.” Matsukawa adds.

Passing through the town that has been thoroughly overrun by nature, they spot signs of life. Small fenced areas, the shrubs trimmed back to allow patches to grow, posts tied together with twine and chains and strips of cloth. In rows, what look like carrot leaves and lettuce heads are sprouting from the ground. The vegetation begins to thin the closer they get to the outskirts of the other side of town; although it’s still thick enough to hold off the worst of the rain, they stick to the half-eaten rooves and second stories of houses.

“Hiro, are you sure it was from over here-”

“Horse?” Hanamaki, dumbly, points at a creature plodding through the vines and broken walls, dragging a big-wheeled cart, led by a tall blonde boy who has his head down, singing quietly to himself. Bounding from a hole in the side of a house, they imitate the horse-and-cart's direction, dashing along the path, undergrowth thinning and thinning until-

“ _Oh_ …” Ahead of them, a tin shed stands as the last barrier between the old town and the forest. The path leading up to it is patched with grass and moss and rocks, clearly well worn. A wooden cart has been pushed into the alley of the warehouse and what could’ve been an old parking ticket booth, a close-shaven boy pulling the broken wheel off and replacing it with a new one. Two boys stand beside him, handing him tools when he holds a hand out, helping to keep the weight off the wheel when they’re not searching through toolboxes. The patches of farmland expand into vast poled-off areas along the other long edge of the warehouse. There are two tall men bowed over in it, pulling potatoes and leeks from the soil. The silver-haired one keeps glancing over his shoulder, whistling every now and then. Regardless, the packs of dogs don’t cease their pacing along the outside of the fence. Trying to pin back as much of the lengthy, wild hair as he can with his dirty hands, the other man looks up makes some hand motion, dismissing the boy and continuing to work alone.

He fumbles a potato and, out of thin air, a short boy dives into the mud and saves it, taking out a couple of leek plants on the way. Their laughter resounds over the various noises of activity and excitement, despite the weather. The short boy gestures to a van- wheels removed, parts warped to make a tent-like frame.

“That’s… That’s the van, right? From the-”

“Yeah, that’s the _same_ one, I’m pretty sure-”

“Hey, isn’t that… Sawamura? From Karasuno?” Matsukawa points out a pair of boys sitting on a crumbling ruin overlooking the warehouse, bows and quivers of arrows draped over their backs- the dark-haired one has noticed them and watches them warily while the other gazes off, one hand on his bow, the other on the other boy’s knee. “And their setter, too?”

“What the fuck is all this-”

"What the hap is fuckening..."

"Dude, really..."

Of all the people in the world, Kageyama himself goes sprinting across the path at lightning speed, chased by a tiny red-head. They’re both slathered with mud, both cackling like crazy children. A _literal_ child chases after them, roaring like a dinosaur before falling flat face-first in a large puddle. The army of dogs overwhelms him in an instant.

“Lev, no!” The child screams, picking himself up out of the fray and turning his pursuit in the direction of the silver-haired boy who’d been working in the field a moment ago. “Kuroo, get him!”

“Kuroo as in _Nekoma’s Kuroo_?” Hanamaki gasps, punching Matsukawa’s arm when he sees a duo of recognizable boys grab this tall Lev boy by the arms, suffering in the writhing mass of dogs that seems to follow the kid everywhere he goes. “Well I’ll be damned, that's Kozume Kenma, too. Fucking shock me, what’s next? Bokuto Koutarou and Ushijima the Super Ace are here too, all happy in this little volleyballers community-”

 _“Nice kill, Yamamoto!!”_ Booms a voice from within the warehouse.

_“Shit, it’s going out the door! Chikara, get-”_

“ _I got it,_ I got it!” It’s Bokuto, of _course_ it is: sports shorts and a baggy top, long black hair done up in a ponytail, cut so that the signature grey is all gone. He scrambles out the door and in to the rain after the ball, shoving and bumping roughly against Ushijima to reach it first. He dives for it, tripping Ushijima up. “Aha, I’m the best Ace in the world!”

“Your volleyball abilities are not determined by your ability to chase a ball.” Ushijima rumbles, a huge smile on his face as Bokuto helps him up and pats his back. Kneading his head and making a mess of his badly cut hair, Bokuto laughs- it's quieter than Matsukawa and Hanamaki remember it being.

“Yeah, yeah, big guy, whatever you say…” Bokuto chuckles, steering him towards the door. As he pauses to throw the ball up and down in an air of smugness, checking out the world outside, Bokuto fumbles when he spots the the figures standing in the trees, motionless in the background of the volleyball; an abomination held together by duct tape and haphazard fabric patches. “He-hey, _hey_ , Akaashi, you may wanna get…” They don’t hear him finish his sentence, lost in the large building as he races away, looking fairly terrified.

The boy from earlier passes them, pulling at the horse’s headcollar to stop it from eating grass.

“Welcome to hell,” He sneers, “Enjoy your stay.”

They watch, slack jawed as he continues onwards, wandering into the merciless battle of man and dog, parting the dogs and boys effortlessly. Kuroo slaps him on the ass, and the horse swings its hindquarters in his direction in the stead of the blonde’s indifference, scaring Kuroo and his friends- furry and otherwise -away.

An equally as tall, thoroughly freckled boy skips up to greet the blonde, kissing him in the rain and linking their arms. Walking at the pace of the horse, they weave through the trees and vanish behind a dilapidated structure; the insides of which look like restaurant booths, scavenged of their pillows and tables.

Wandering forward into the abruptly empty space, dazed, Matsukawa and Hanamaki lean against each other and gingerly approach the warehouse.

"Oi, shitheads!!" A screeching that can _only_ be Oikawa's comes from above. Hanamaki shades his eyes with a hand to get a look at him through the shower. "What the _fuck_?! I thought you were dead!!"

"I thought  _you_ were dead!" Firing back, Hanamaki can't stop his smile. From down the ground, he can see an answering one on Oikawa's.

"What's up, you sons of bitches!" Iwaizumi strolls out of the warehouse, arms stretched up and folded, resting behind his head, shoulders slouched and unwary.

"That is no way to greet an old _friend_!" Matsukawa starts off grouchy behind his stupid sunglasses, unable to hold his pretend standoffishness against Hajime. His voice progressively rises and finally cracks on the last word. They sprint all the way up to the door where Iwaizumi is waiting, shedding their bags on the way, laughing when they all go to hug at the same time and ending up in a tousled group cuddle.

"Save some love for me, I gotta get down there!!" Oikawa whines, clattering around on the roof.

"We'll catch you!" Hanamaki dares him, looking up into the downpour, refusing to leave the arms of his friends. Oikawa’s voice is fading anyway, mercifully indicating that he’s _not_ going to jump off the roof.

"It's four stories down!!"

"We'll catch you!!"

" _Fuck off_!!!"

“But we just got here!!”

Hanamaki's arms tighten around both Matsukawa and Iwaisumi, a manifestation of the feeling- we made it, we really made it, it seems to say.

Iwaizumi laughs and hugs them tight.

“Nice shit in your hair, Mattsun.”

Matsukawa reaches up and touches the thin bones that are holding his bun together, tears prickling his eyes. 

 _We made it_.

“Yeah, man. It's pretty lit.”

-˙˙˙-

 

\- I.H.

[You left out the part where Mattsun told me he had the end of Oikawa’s femur? I thought that was great!]

[Maybe a bit too inappropriate for class, Asahi.]

[Ah. Yeah, I can see that, now.]

[‘I gave you a bone-r’. Haha.]

[Yes, Asahi, we all got the joke.]


End file.
